President Joe Biden, while meeting one-on-one with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unexpectedly made the sign of the cross when the Jewish leader began speaking, possibly making a joke about his own age.
"We've been friends for, I've checked it, over 40 years," Netanyahu said while speaking with Biden at the sidelines of the United Nations, prompting Biden, who is a Catholic, to make the sign as a possible response about his own age, reports The New York Post.
Biden didn't explain the action and the White House hasn't given a response to a request for comment about his use of the sign of the cross, which is used as a self-blessing.
Over the years, relations between Biden and Netanyahu have been chilly. The Israeli prime minister, a political conservative, often worked closely with President Trump.
Biden has criticized the Israeli prime minister's proposals limiting his country's court system's ability to review the actions of the government.
Both leaders said Wednesday they hope to broker diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia to build on the Trump administration's Abraham Accords.
"If you and I 10 years ago were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, I think we'd look at each other like, 'Who has been drinking what?'" said Biden, whose administration led to the opening of Saudi airspace to flights by Israel.
"Good Irish whiskey," Netanyahu responded, jokingly, later adding that he thinks that under Biden's leadership, "we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia."
The governments of Bahrain, Kosovo, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, in former President Donald Trump's final year in the White House, established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Saudi government has been doing some business with Trump and members of his family in the years after the former president left office, including investing $2 billion with a firm owned by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
LIV Golf, which is funded through the Saudi Public Investment Fund, has held at least four events at Trump-owned golf courses outside Washington, D.C., and Bedminster, New Jersey.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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